DietPi-Software | UniFi Controller

[Gill-Bates]

The Unifi Controller is a very popular tool on the Raspberry. I found a guide on the net how to install it:

https://smarthome-training.com/de/unifi-controller-raspberry-pi/

Does anyone have the time and inclination to add the Unifi controller to the software archive so that it can be easily installed via dietpi-software?

PS: Be aware of the missing JAVA_HOME-Bug: https://community.ui.com/questions/Java-Home-Directory-Fail-Issue-on-Ubuntu-RESOLVED/1faea5fd-6eda-4be9-a12f-676ef6be2529

ADMIN EDIT: Please use the up arrow at this post to vote for integrating this software title.

[Gill-Bates]

I would to bring this topic up again. Here comes the Steps to Install Unifi on Dietpi. To add this to the Software Catalouge should be not a big deal:

Install correct openJDK

sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk-headless

Add Repo

echo 'deb http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable ubiquiti' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/100-ubnt-unifi.list
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/unifi-repo.gpg https://dl.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-repo.gpg

Install Unifi
sudo apt update; sudo apt install unifi

[Joulinar]

Hi,

many thanks for your request. Just one comment from my side. I don't think it will be implemented if a dependency is openjdk-8 because openjdk-8 is not available on standard Debian repository for Debian Buster systems. Yes it's part of Raspbian Repository but than it would be dedicated to one set of SBC device. Even I'm not sure how it is on Raspberry OS 64bit, as the Foundation will switch to standard Debian repository with it. But it's up to @MichaIng to decide.

[rhkean]

there is a work around for this. I am running the unifi controller on my dietpi raspberry pi 4, but it has to be done very early in the dietpi setup.

I found the reference to this install script on the Ubiqui forums here: https://community.ui.com/questions/UniFi-Installation-Scripts-or-UniFi-Easy-Update-Script-or-UniFi-Lets-Encrypt-or-UniFi-Easy-Encrypt-/ccbc7530-dd61-40a7-82ec-22b17f027776
The author's main website is here: https://glennr.nl/

1. perform a basic install of dietpi. I booted a fresh install of dietpi, ran dietpi-software to configure the basics, like network setting and such, but did not select any software to install

2. then do the following: (this will download and run an installation script that will download and configure everything needed to install and run the unifi controller.
   wget "https://get.glennr.nl/unifi/install/unifi-6.0.27.sh" -O install-unifi-6.0.27.sh && chmod +x install-unifi-6.0.27.sh && ./install-unifi-6.0.27.sh

3. NOTE: if you run the script a second time, it will detect the installation and give you an option to update if there is a newer version available. When I did this a couple weeks ago, only the 6.0.27 version was available for download, but running the script a 2nd time upgraded me to 6.0.28. (there may be a newer version at this time)

4. after the script completes, then you can run dietpi-software to install other applications as needed. NOTE: I do not run any other java-based applications on my dietpi server, so I can not say whether this will cause any version compatibility issues.

[Gill-Bates]

@rhkean Thanks for sharing your Script. I would prefer to using the standard-way with Board-Instruments of Linux as desribed above. Then with this solution, an apt dist-upgrade will also auto-upgrade the Unifi-Controller - without additional Scripts.

But I agree: without any additional customizings (like reducing the Max_Heap_Size=512M down from 1024M), on older Raspberry Pi Models than 3+, the systemctl start Unifi.service would fail.

[Joulinar]

well the script is still trying to install JAVA8. Not sure if this is an option for nonRPi systems

[rhkean]

I would prefer that, too. Unfortunately, Ubiquiti's controller code requires java 8 and there are several other packages that I ran into problems with... This script worked, though. To be clear, this is not my script. I found it on Ubiquiti's users forum.

…

-rob

On Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 12:36 PM Gill Bates ***@***.***> wrote: @rhkean <https://github.com/rhkean> Thanks for sharing your Script. I would prefer to using the standard-way with Board-Instruments of Linux as desribed above. Then with this solution, an apt dist-upgrade will also auto-upgrade the Unifi-Controller - without additional Scripts. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3708 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADTEBBDKXKOKQ5DL643XF7TSQKYDFANCNFSM4PZJ7GOA> .

[rhkean]

I'm not certain about what boards are supported, tbh. You would have to read the scripts to find out. I do recall from my quick glance a while back, that it does as much 'apt-get' as it can without breaking anything.

…

On Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 1:10 PM Joulinar ***@***.***> wrote: well the script is still trying to install JAVA8. Not sure if this is an option for nonRPi systems — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3708 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADTEBBGYC2WR4SF2G6LF3BLSQK4A5ANCNFSM4PZJ7GOA> .

[Joulinar]

To be clear, this is not my script. I found it on Ubiquiti's users forum.

I know. I just tried to highlight that the script will not change the requirement of JAVA8. And this limit the possible use case.

Currently I'm trying to run the script on one of my VM's but it seems to be stuck somewhere during all the apt install steps 🤔

EDIT:
LOL the script will install openjdk-8-jre-headless from Stretch repository

root@DietPiVM1:/etc/apt/sources.list.d# cat glennr-install-script.list
deb http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian stretch main

[MichaIng]

Good find. That is somehow an issue as we already dropped several other software titles from Buster on, which depend on Java 8. Yes Raspbian contains it, but with upcoming Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (and my in production testing Debian-based ARMv7 image), there will be mostly only RPi 1 and Zero left (+existing systems of course) which use Raspbian. And using binaries from old-old-stable (from summer on) repositories is not something I'm keen to do, although we did in other cases (e.g. libssl1.0.0).

Would be interesting if there are any plans to make it Java 11 compatible?

[rhkean]

Agreed.. for as popular as their devices are, I'm a bit dumbfounded that they haven't brought it current, especially since they've brought other dependencies current like mangodb.

…

On Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:06 AM MichaIng ***@***.***> wrote: Good find. That is somehow an issue as we already dropped several other software titles from Buster on, which depend on Java 8. Yes Raspbian contains it, but with upcoming Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (and my in production testing Debian-based ARMv7 image), there will be mostly only RPi 1 and Zero left (+existing systems of course) which use Raspbian. And using binaries from old-old-stable (from summer on) repositories is not something I'm keen to do, although we did in other cases (e.g. libssl1.0.0). Would be interesting if there are any plans to make it Java 11 compatible? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3708 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADTEBBEK7HZVNKUTAAHOS5TSQPIHBANCNFSM4PZJ7GOA> .

[Gill-Bates]

Or only applications that are compatible for the installed platform appear in the software catalog. :-)

[MichaIng]

Or only applications that are compatible for the installed platform appear in the software catalog. :-)

Jep, that is how it is currently. However, to implement software for a very limited set of platforms is less of a pleasure of course, specially when it's about outdated dependencies which will break them on even the small left platforms earlier or later 😄.

So for now it would be all Stretch platforms and Raspbian. Since it is famous for RPi which in combination which Raspbian still covers ~50% of our users, that should be worth enough to implement.

[Fireman1224]

Does anyone know if the Unifi Controller has been resolved to work with the latest version of DietPi?

Also, would it be possible to run PiHole and PiVPN/WireGuard on the same unit (RPi 3 B+) with the Controller or should I keep the controller separate?

Thanks in advance!

[Joulinar]

Well if I'm not mistaken, issue was the requirement of JAVA8 which is quite old and outdated.

[Fireman1224]

So if I install Openjdk8, I should be able to run all 3 on one device with DietPi? I'm a noob, so just trying to understand...

[Joulinar]

About MongoDB: Isn't is possible to compile it for ARM?

Should be possible according the 2 guides I posted above

[Fireman1224]

OK, I really appreciate the assistance. I'll see if I can understand the guide.

Thanks!

[Joulinar]

@MichaIng
If I'm not mistaken MongoDB reuigeres 64bit on actual version. Means our ARMv6 RPi image isn't a real option. But maybe I'm wrong.

[MichaIng]

As I edited into my post above, just note that you should compile it on an external drive (not an SD card!), have a large swap file in place (also not on an SD card), turn off all other services/software running on that RPi and let it running over night. At best attach an SSD via USB3 for swap file and building, so the disk I/O at least won't be a bottleneck.

I not yet found a definit statement that MongoDB at its core does not support 32-bit, but rather that they stopped to ship 32-bit binaries. Else this would further complicate and limit the abilities to run Unifi Controller, as long as they do not support newer Java versions, as only Raspbian (32-bit) still ships Java 8 natively.

Btw, did someone already try the MongoDB 64-bit ARM Ubuntu package (on our 64-bit image, of course)? https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu/dists/focal/mongodb-org/5.0/multiverse/binary-arm64/mongodb-org-server_5.0.2_arm64.deb
And then Adoptium JRE 8: https://github.com/adoptium/temurin8-binaries/releases/download/jdk8u302-b08/OpenJDK8U-jre_aarch64_linux_hotspot_8u302b08.tar.gz

[Gill-Bates]

@Fireman1224 Try it stupid simple. Don't mess around with compling if you don't have any clue about Linux. It will end up in wasting time and a lot of frustration (but you will learn a lot!) We were all Rookies once. :-)

1. Run dietpi-software and search in the Software Cataloge for "Docker". Install Docker and if you like Docker-Compose. This may take a while (btw: The Dietpi-Team did a great Job with writing the Setup-Script! 🥇).
   

2. After finishing Installation run the command docker pull linuxserver/unifi-controller. It will load all Dependencies for you. This will also take some time:
   

3. Now, start the Container: docker run -d linuxserver/unifi-controller -p 8443:8443 -p 8080:8080 It will map the Port 8843 from inside the Containers Webserver to your Network.

[modestasmili]

Hello, did 3 steps by instruction below. Rebooted dietpi. Please help, how i have to access unifi controler?
I,m green in this steps. Thank you, @Gill-Bates

[Joulinar]

Via port 8080 or 8443

[MichaIng]

Ah nice, a Docker container exists. Not the implementation we'd add to dietpi-software, but an easy and functional one, until we found an acceptable solution for MongoDB and Java 8.

[Fireman1224]

@Gill-Bates @MichaIng

So I've never played around with docker, but from what little I have read, it seems like it will be easy enough to try. I had ended up just going back with Raspberry OS and then installing the Unifi Controller on that, but I need a second controller for another location that I have to configure, so I'm going to try the Docker approach. If I can make it work, I may re-do my current site with Docker instead. I appreciate the continued support and advice!!

Question 1: If I set up the USB flash drive on a Pi 4, could I then use it in a Pi 3B+ or do I need to make some adjustments because of the RAM difference?

Question 2: Will I have to run docker run -d linuxserver/unifi-controller -p 8443:8443 -p 8080:8080 each time I reboot the pi or will it automatically start upon reboot after the initial run? Since this is running headless, I would want to have it start automatically.

Question 3: How are the controller version updates handled within Docker?

I apologize for the question bombardment, but this is a new area for me...

Thanks! @

[MichaIng]

A1: No adjustments required, but probably a swap file needs to be created or its size increased when the system on the RPi 4 used it, or used more than 1 GiB physical memory.

A2: The Docker/containerd service itself starts all containers, after having them deployed once.

A3: At least you need to remove the old container, before calling docker run again. Not sure if also the image needs to be removed in every case?

# Remove Docker container
docker rm "$(docker ps -a | mawk '/linuxserver\/unifi-controller/{print $1;exit}')"
# Remove Docker image
docker rmi "$(docker images -a | mawk '/linuxserver\/unifi-controller/{print $3;exit}')"

[Joulinar]

usually the image can be removed as well as a new version will be download. Depending on the Docker application you would need to check if personal data are stored on a location outside the container to ensure not starting from scratch.

[MichaIng]

If settings/data are stored within the Docker image, is removing the container actually sufficient to have it updated, or does this only remove the "image" from being started/controlled by the parent Docker service?

[Joulinar]

Removing the container will have no impact on the image as it will not be updated. Creating a new container will reuse the old image again. That's why dietpi-software is removing container + image on reinstall for our Portainer installation. As well Portainer is configured to use a volume directory outside the container to store all relevant Information.

The image provider (linuxserver/unifi-controller) themselves is using a docker compose file, having a volume path specified. This way data are stored outside the container.

https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/unifi-controller

---
version: "2.1"
services:
  unifi-controller:
    image: ghcr.io/linuxserver/unifi-controller
    container_name: unifi-controller
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - MEM_LIMIT=1024M #optional
      - MEM_STARTUP=1024M #optional
    volumes:
      - <path to data>:/config
    ports:
      - 3478:3478/udp
      - 10001:10001/udp
      - 8080:8080
      - 8443:8443
      - 1900:1900/udp #optional
      - 8843:8843 #optional
      - 8880:8880 #optional
      - 6789:6789 #optional
      - 5514:5514/udp #optional
    restart: unless-stopped

[MichaIng]

Thanks for clarification. So then the two commands I provided above should do the job, followed by docker run ... of course.

[Gill-Bates]

Running the Docker Container will work on a Rpi 3+, but it’s no joy!

i miss the days, where a simple apt install openjdk-8-jdk-headless just worked …

[Joulinar]

Basically JAVA8 should not be the issue as you could install it from AdoptOpenJDK repository https://adoptopenjdk.net/installation.html?variant=openjdk8&jvmVariant=hotspot#linux-pkg

It's still MongoDB not being available that simple on ARM boards.

Therefore, using Docker container seems to be the easiest solution currently.

Regarding memory consumption, I guess it would be similar without docker. At least on my test, nearly 600MB are used by JAVA 😉 Below a view from my Docker installation for Unifi.

BTW: version running inside the container

root@DietPi4:~# docker exec -it unifi-controller java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_292"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_292-8u292-b10-0ubuntu1~18.04-b10)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.292-b10, mixed mode)

root@DietPi4:~# docker exec -it unifi-controller mongod --version
db version v3.6.3
git version: 9586e557d54ef70f9ca4b43c26892cd55257e1a5
OpenSSL version: OpenSSL 1.1.1  11 Sep 2018
allocator: tcmalloc
modules: none
build environment:
    distarch: aarch64
    target_arch: aarch64

root@DietPi4:~# docker exec -it unifi-controller cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="18.04.5 LTS (Bionic Beaver)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS"
VERSION_ID="18.04"
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
VERSION_CODENAME=bionic
UBUNTU_CODENAME=bionic

[MichaIng]

i miss the days, where a simple apt install openjdk-8-jdk-headless just worked …

And this still works with the ARMv6 image.

@Joulinar
Don't use AdoptOpenJDK anymore, as it is renamed to Adoptium and they currently build the new infrastructure. So using the old APT repo won't work anymore earlier or later. This is where binaries can be found: https://github.com/adoptium/temurin8-binaries/releases or https://adoptium.net/nightly.html?variant=openjdk8&jvmVariant=hotspot
Latest (nightly) arm32 build: https://github.com/adoptium/temurin8-binaries/releases/download/jdk8u-2021-09-02-03-07-beta/OpenJDK8U-jre_arm_linux_hotspot_2021-09-02-03-07.tar.gz

But no APT repository exists yet, so install needs to be done manually:

curl -sSfLO https://github.com/adoptium/temurin8-binaries/releases/download/jdk8u-2021-09-02-03-07-beta/OpenJDK8U-jre_arm_linux_hotspot_2021-09-02-03-07.tar.gz
tar xf OpenJDK8U-jre_arm_linux_hotspot_2021-09-02-03-07.tar.gz -C /opt
ln -s /opt/jdk8u312-b03-jre/bin/java /usr/local/bin/java